| Cable Name: | Australia–Japan Cable (AJC) |
| Map: | AJC-Cable-route.png |
| Owners: | Telstra, BT, Verizon Business, Softbank |
| Landing Points: |
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| Technology: | Fibre-optic |
| Design Capacity: | 640 gbit/s (2001) 1000 gbit/s (2008) >4000 gbit/s (2013)[1] |
| Current Capacity: | 80 gbit/s (2001) 240 gbit/s (2008) 320 gbit/s (2013) |
| Length: | 12,700 km |
| Topology: | collapsed loop design |
| First Use Date: | 2001 |
The Australia–Japan Cable, or AJC, is a 12,700 km submarine telecommunications cable system linking Australia and Japan via Guam[2] that became operational in 2001. It had an original design capacity of 640 Gbit/s, but was initially equipped to use only 80 Gbit/s of this capacity. In April 2008 a capacity upgrade was completed, bringing equipped capacity to 240 Gbit/s. Design capacity was also increased to 1000 Gbit/s. Further upgrades will increase equipped capacity to meet increasing demand.[3]
The AJC network employs a collapsed loop design that features diverse landings in Australia, Guam and Japan and diverse routing at water depths less than 4000m. This design reduces cost by using a common sheath in deep water, where risk of failure is low, but provides redundancy to mitigate risk in shallower waters and in the landing stations.
The network supports a range of access interfaces, including SDH at STM1, STM4, STM16 and STM64 levels, 2.5G clear, Direct Wavelength Access, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. A range of protection options are available, including SDH span and ring protection and 1:n wavelength redundancy.
The cable has a design life to 2026.
AJC is jointly owned by Telstra, BT, Verizon Business and Softbank.